New Backyard Bird

We believe this is a female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Perhaps a juvenille.

Something that is cool and actually happened.

Check out this photo from a Chilean volcano that erupted during a thunderstorm.



Here is a link for several more photos of the eruption, courtesy of UPI News Agency.

The Best Ever Pilot

You will not believe this.

One of my favorite websites

I thought it would be fun if everyone shared one, or more, of their favorite websites. I always like to see what other people use the internet for and potentially discover a new cool site. I'll go first...

There is a website called "Newsmap" that is a visual representation of stories on Google News (i.e., the more stories on a subject the bigger its box). I find it's an easy way to see what the nation is talking about. It's even customizable to include/exclude certain subjects (i.e., Sports, Entertainment, Health, etc.) The only downside is that if you have a small monitor you need to mouse over some of the stories to see what they are about. One last thing is the brighter the color of the box the more recent the stories are, and once it's black the story is relatively old (by relatively I mean more than an hour). Give it a look and tell me what you think, http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm

P.S. The legend on the bottom right of the screen tells you what each color stands for.

Another desktop to share...

Here's another desktop background I created for work that I wanted to share. It's sized for my desktop so it might not fit right on your computer so let me know if you want to use it and I will resize it for you. :)

Edit: I forgot one of the pictures on the first one so I added it and posted the corrected one too.

Start at the bottom and work up

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Yellowstone

Who needs Yellowstone.

Even though there are 5 - 600 buffalos on the island, since they have no preditors, they do not remain together in a big herd.

This coyotte was about 500 yards away.

Finally some Buffalo, I mean Bison. There are about 500 on the Island making it the largest herd in the US.

We had a great time inspite of everything!

Mountains and the Great Salt Lake all around. The island is about 28,000 acres.

It was a cloudy day, but it was beautiful.

We also decided to go to Antelope Island. OK I decided so I could use my new camera.

They are tearing down the old ZCMI>

Everyone enjoyed the program. It was a special one for Veterans Day.

So we decided to drive back to Salt Lake. Go shopping, do dinner, and go see the MoTab on Sunday morning.

They had bears, but they were in cages so we took this one was easier to photograph

We saw wolves.

So we decided to go to the Bear and Wolf exhibit in West Yellowstone.

Now what do we do? Well we could walk into the park, but it is about 30 miles to Old Faithful and its cold.

Much to our great dismay and disbelief, the park closes after the first Sunday in November each year. They do not want to plow the roads so that snowmobiles and snow coaches can enter the park starting Dec 15. Who knew? Obviously not us!

After spending the night in Idaho Falls and a total of 5 hours driving, we finally got to Yellowstone.

This truck went off in a ditch. It was full of frozen onion rings. Do not think anyone was hurt.

The roads got a little worse the closer we got. Idaho does not like to plow.

A Trip to Walmart for last minute things we forgot.